Yet another government inquiry into social media

Yeehaw, we're getting a "Joint Parliamentary Select Committee into the influence and impacts of social media on Australian society". The Committee will look at Meta's decision to refuse to be extorted by the news media industry, the "important role of Australian journalism" (lol) and a look at "the algorithms, recommender systems and corporate decision making of digital platforms" without any access to the code of those algorithms. The Committee also leaves some space for whatever pet peeve politicians have with social media at the time so they can get a clip of them grilling some Asia Pacific regional executive lackey to post on TikTok and Facebook. Yeah, investigate the social media companies again for like the 4th time in under a decade, then threaten them with a new law that gives you God mode powers but never use it because deep down you know you need social media's reach so the proletariat knows you funded yet another road upgrade that'll be congested a few weeks after it opens or gave the local footy club money for a new pie warmer. I'm so tired.

StackOverflow users revolt over OpenAI partnership

People pissed off with StackOverflow's decision to hand over all their knowledge to OpenAI's insatiable LLM tried to take matters into their own hands and delete or modify their contributions - much like what happened over on Reddit a few months ago. StackOverflow seems to give even less of a fuck than Reddit about community cohesion, restoring posts against the user's wishes and then suspending their accounts. Kathy Reid explains over on Mastodon exactly how I also feel about this trend of tech companies handing over free human generated information to LLM ghouls. Perhaps technically and legally StackOverflow "owns" those posts due to the licence users agreed to when submitting them, but goddamn, what a gross and total misunderstanding of consent and an abuse of the good will of humanity. As Kathy says, "programmers now join artists and copywriters, whose works have been snaffled up to create #GenAI solutions". Don't let these fuckwits steal our humanity from us to line their pockets!

Tesla under investigation for misleading investors over perennial FSD lies

Tesla is again facing a US government investigation, this time for "securities or wire fraud by misleading investors and consumers about its electric vehicles' self-driving capabilities". We all know Full Self Driving is a party trick at best, a widowmaker at worst, and Tesla even told the Californian DMV it is only an SAE Level 2 system, but that hasn't stopped Elon spouting absolute bullshit about FSD for years so he can juice the stock price to a level beyond any semblance of reality. The US DoJ and SEC have finally woken up to this scam and I hope they're reaching out to any whistleblowers who hopefully, have more integrity than Musk and don't turn a blind eye to protect their share options.

Tech dorks could lean a lot from Steve Albini's approach to music production

Legendary recording engineer Steve Albini died suddenly yesterday think Albini's experience with the music industry has parallels that easily apply to the technology industry, as they are both areas rife with bullshit. His 1993 essay, "The Problem with Music" starts off with the mental image of "a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit", while "a faceless industry lackey at the other end, holding a fountain pen and a contract waiting to be signed" and just gets better the longer the essay goes. As I read it for the first time in about a decade, all I could think of is the startup scene and nodding my head, recognising the same tactics employed by both groups of shysters. Even the bits about recording audio could be replaced with the latest fad or buzzword we've all come across while just trying to do our work.